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For Bob Vila, Move-In Condition

AFTER 17 years of painstakingly renovating houses to the delight of armchair carpenters, anyone might need a break. So when Bob Vila, the tele-renovator and former host of “This Old House,” decided to buy a house, he opted for an apartment carved out of the top floor of a century-old commercial building facing Madison Square Park. Toolbox not required.

While the allure of multifeatured new condominiums, with their full-service gyms and children’s playrooms, may be fading in the deepening recession, Mr. Vila and his wife, Diana Barrett, chose a place with a “dream kitchen” with “rich ebonized cabinetry” and a two-zone wine cooler, according to the building’s promotional material.

Property records indicate that Mr. Vila closed in mid-January on a 2,500-square-foot two-bedroom penthouse with a 700-square-foot private roof deck and a wood-burning fireplace on the 20th floor of 15 East 26th Street, also known as 15 Madison Square. He paid $5.9 million.

Mr. Vila had owned two apartments at Museum Tower, high above the Museum of Modern Art at 15 West 53rd Street. He sold a one-bedroom apartment he used as an office in March 2007 for $2.85 million, and a second apartment, 2,200 square feet in size, last May for $4.5 million.

At 15 Madison Square, 72 condominiums were built on the 9th through 20th floors. All but 12 apartments are said to be in contract, and so far 34 buyers have closed. But the building’s sales director, Jim Brawders of the Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, said that sales had slowed lately and that asking prices on some units had been trimmed.

Even so, the asking prices on some of the lower-floor apartments are nearly 10 percent above the price that Mr. Vila paid for his condo. That’s because he signed a contract in March 2007, when the first group of apartments came on the market.